


Bellona, Belladonna

by superblackmarket



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Rickyl, set in and around 4.16/early season 5, sex and conflict and resolution, starts dark but don't be deterred, things that shouldn't be done in a sacristy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:11:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superblackmarket/pseuds/superblackmarket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Ugly. It was the ugliness, blossoming between them like deadly nightshade, that made Rick sick and dizzy even as he fed it poison from his own hand.</em>
</p><p>Rick makes a mistake and sends Daryl running in the opposite direction just when he needs him the most. But out on the road, they can't go back to the way they were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bellona, Belladonna

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a long-ago prompt from MermaidSheenaz that grew from a drabble into a story.

Ugly. It was the ugliness, blossoming between them like deadly nightshade, that made Rick sick and dizzy even as he fed it poison from his own hand.

It had started sweet. Sitting side by side in the dirt. _You being back with us, here, now, that’s everything. You’re my -…_ and not knowing how to finish the sentence, _brother_ suddenly imprecise and just plain wrong. _You’re my_ he didn’t know what, something primordial that closer resembled ripping a man’s throat out than linking arms in brotherly affection.

He didn’t think he’d read the signs wrong, back at the prison, when Daryl would curl his fingers around his wrist and tug him closer, or the touches that passed between them like benedictions before Daryl went on a run and Rick stayed behind in his garden. Or how Daryl would stop by his cell most nights, sometimes to talk but mostly to sit next to him on the bunk and share companionable silences that ended too soon with a slap to the knee and _well, I’m off, g’night Rick._ And how slowly it became more and Daryl would spend a few hours, and then entire nights, curled around him like a cat and the cell would grow humid with sex when one of them rolled atop the other to start it all over again.

They never discussed it. There had been moments, Rick was sure of it, when he might have leaned in a few more inches and whispered a question into Daryl’s ear. But he’d never closed that particular distance. Maybe it was the constant background noise, maybe it was Daryl’s habit of leaning back slightly whenever he got too close with his words.

But Daryl wanted it, too, Rick was certain he did, or he wouldn’t have come back night after night until the prison fell and they lost each other.

 _You’re my_ – … He pulled Daryl towards him, bumped their foreheads together – harder than he’d meant to – and from there it wasn’t so daunting, just a slight realignment, to put his mouth on Daryl’s and breathe in his choked little gasp. He felt Daryl’s tongue pressed against his upper lip, accident or design he didn’t know, but he sucked it in anyway. And then Daryl finally came to life and began to move his tongue against Rick’s.

A soft snore drifted from the vehicle; they both froze. Carl. Michonne.

Maybe it was wrong what he did next, hasty, bundling Daryl to his feet and dragging him off the road, wrestling him down just behind the treeline. Maybe they should have talked about it first, when so much had changed in a few short days. But arousal was like an amphetamine coursing through his body and he was just another desperate junkie craving release. And Daryl responded in kind, knotting his fingers in Rick’s hair and yanking his head back so he could nip along his jawline and run his tongue down to the hollow of his throat.

Rick didn’t know if he wanted to draw blood, or if he wanted to bury his face in Daryl’s shoulder and sob. And Daryl, what did Daryl want right now? Would he fight like he fucked – no no, the other way, the other way around, would he fuck like he _fought_ , one man against three, not giving an inch until he finally drove his foot through his last opponent’s skull and dashed the blood from his eyes?

But Rick was wrong. Goaded beyond the limits of endurance that cold grey morning, Daryl was pure elegance. So deeply embodied in his own flesh blood bone and muscle, his body was his medium, and when words failed he had another idiom to fall back on.

And so he let Daryl lead, and Daryl set about unmaking Rick as easily as he strung his bow. Pushing his jacket over his shoulders, running calloused hands under his shirt to feel the sharp protrusions of his spine, sliding them down to grasp him by the hips and tug him closer. They knelt facing each other and Daryl leaned in but Rick got his hand between them first and ran his palm over the bulge of Daryl’s groin, boldly squeezing his erection.

Daryl went rigid, losing his all his rhythms and Rick couldn’t resist smirking into his startled face as he squeezed him a second time.

And that was where it started to go wrong but how could he have known, when Daryl was still hot and hard under his hand and breathing raggedly into his ear? He was riding too much adrenaline – Daryl appearing like he’d been summoned _you want blood? take it from me man,_ then the heady rush of hot blood spilling down his face, and now one last pursuit (or something like that, no time to wonder what kind of predator it made him if Daryl was his prey) coming to an end here in the foliage off the road – to consider that maybe he should have been looking to Daryl this time.

If he had, he might have realized that Daryl was playing a subtler game than predator-prey, and that he was trampling roughshod over a near-holy rite when he let his curst need for control get the best of him.

To think Daryl would be grateful – _grateful_ – that Rick was ready to bulldoze past the awkwardness of the act by getting both their flies undone, by pulling their pelvises flush and seizing both erections in a single fist to get the job done quick and filthy, as befitting this cold grey morning with a rust-colored sun rising like a bloodstain on the horizon.

And Daryl was hard, leaking, breathing in hoarse little pants, mouth open against Rick’s – even then it was still salvageable. But half-mad and driven still madder by impending climax, Rick lost his head completely. He spun Daryl about so he was kneeling away from him, and pressing his chest to Daryl’s back, wrapping his arms around him, he finished spectacularly by thrusting – once, twice – against Daryl’s squeezed-shut thighs. Through the cottony haze of release he reached round to finish Daryl off, too, only to find him gone soft, flinching away from Rick’s fingers.

Of what followed, the less said the better. His increasingly frantic queries and apologies, his clumsy attempts (fiercely rebuffed) to wipe his cum from Daryl’s legs. Daryl jerked his pants up over the mess Rick had left on him, his narrow face tense and drawn. _I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, what happened, are you okay, where did I go wrong? You know how much you mean to me, don’t you? You being back with me here, now, that’s everything. You’re my - …_

He’d fucked up and he knew it, lost the way somewhere. Balking in his own kind of fright, unable to relinquish control to the one person he could have trusted with surrender.

Daryl was conferring with Michonne when he made it back to the road. “You ready?” he said, squinting up at Rick like nothing had happened.

“Yeah,” he said, wrong-footed. “Yeah, I’m…” His son slipped out of the car, took one look at his father, and darted behind Daryl. Rick’s heart sank further. At least Daryl had the decency to pretend he wasn’t appalled by the sight of him.

But the implacable set of his lips never relaxed, and as they followed the railway track to Terminus, Michonne was the only one who kept pace with Rick. Daryl and Carl brought up the rear like a broody storm cloud. Once he heard Carl chuckle, a low, tentative ripple, but when he whipped around to catch the ghost of a smile on his son’s face, and maybe Daryl’s too, both were walking with their heads down, curiously alike with their overgrown bangs and wary hunched shoulders. Michonne clasped his arm and offered him a smile of her own, but he couldn’t return it.

Terminus. They saved each other’s lives again, he and Daryl, and after they scaled the wall and left the smoking abattoir behind them it was Daryl who grabbed his shoulders and checked him over for injury.

 _He hates me, he hates me not_ Rick chanted over and over in his head as Carol led them through the forest. Feeling sicker and sicker. It was wrong to dwell on a botched half-fuck that meant nothing compared to everything else. He had his family back, Carol had saved them, and now Carol was leading them to a cottage in an almond grove where he would be reunited with Judith and they would be complete again. As close to complete as you got these days.

Daryl was like a wisp of smoke as they made their halting, ponderous way through the woods. Scouting ahead, doubling back to cover their trail, taking the side flank as he sized up the new arrivals, then suddenly appearing at Rick’s side. Whispering grim tidings in his ear _better keep an eye on Sergeant Hoss over there, he got his own agenda; aint movin fast enough; reckon we’re bein followed_ ; leaning in so his breath tickled the side of Rick’s face. Rick had to bite the inside of his cheek and breathe through his nose. Daryl was still his lieutenant, maybe even his friend, there was no wavering loyalty in those stormy blue eyes, but Rick was greedy and his ears were ringing with _not enough, not enough._

He tried to corner Daryl, just once, when the group paused to rest. Followed him down to a stream where he was splashing his face and refilling their bottles. Laid a hand on his shoulder. “Daryl, I-” But Daryl brushed him off like a troublesome gnat and left Rick standing there with a half-filled jug of water and a sense of mounting dread.

The hours passed and Daryl continued to rebuff him, not with anger or disgust, just a mild, preoccupied annoyance that was somehow worse. He almost wished Daryl would hit him, anything that burned hotter than indifference. It was all over, he told himself, but then Daryl would lean in to whisper something, jabbing a finger into Rick’s side for emphasis, and his resolve would crack and the whole tedious cycle began again. Until Daryl disappeared, and Carol and Bob too, and everything went straight to hell.

Trying to marshal his thoughts, Abraham’s ultimatum hanging over his head like an axe. Washington D.C.? Who gave a fuck about Washington D.C. when Daryl was missing, gone, vanished without a trace. Had he and Carol left of their own volition? Anguished, Rick couldn’t help but wonder. Carol, strange and brittle, for her own obscure reasons, and Daryl because Rick had rashly sundered their bond for a misplaced fumble in the dirt.   _I need you_ he thought for the hundredth time, outvoted and depleted, about to lose Glenn and Maggie for the second time in a fortnight. He’d never appreciated what it meant to have Daryl behind him, the air of invincibility Daryl’s stalwart presence leant him.

(All the same, he was almost glad Daryl wasn’t there to see him waste Gareth, watch Sasha turn another Termite into ground-up dogfood. Daryl hated mess, gratuitous excess, when a bolt through the brain or a knife to the skull did the job in an instant. Even after all he’d done, he wanted Daryl to think well of him.)

 _Come back to me._ He repeated it like a prayer. _Come back, come back, come back to me._

Used to be, they shared a kind of telepathy. All it took was a glance or a nod and Daryl knew what Rick was thinking. He searched for Daryl’s thoughts in the vast emptiness between them, _can you hear me Major Tom? This is ground control_ but maybe the distance was too great, maybe Daryl was closing him out and ignoring his frantic transmissions. The fragile wire connecting them had shorted out, _your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong_ , and it was like floating alone in outer space to be untethered from Daryl.

_Come back, come back, come back to me. Come back, come –_

And then Daryl came back. Back with the scrawny kid Noah instead of Beth and Carol. Hunkered down in the false sanctuary of Father Gabriel’s church, he told them what had befallen Carol and how Beth was alive, _alive,_ and Rick was dragging in shallow breaths as a tiny unoccupied corner of his brain rejoiced in exaltation. _He didn’t leave me. He came back. He came back._ A plan, tomorrow they would make a plan, but now he needed to get Daryl on his own so he could apologize, fall to his knees if he had to, and hand him his surrender.

But Daryl caught his eye first and raised a brow before turning to the priest and saying, “You got somewhere we can talk, in private?” Gabriel gestured wordlessly to his office and Daryl practically frogmarched Rick into the dark little room before locking the door behind them. Rick backed up until he collided with Gabriel’s desk. “I,” he said. “I, I…”

“You what?” Daryl said. He looked fatigued, new bruises added to his colorful collection. All sharp angles, cheekbones brows elbows and frowning mouth.

“I,” Rick said. “I-”

“Yeah, I got that much,” Daryl said. “You.”

Rick could hardly make out his face in the gloom. He fumbled behind him and came up with an altar candle and Daryl pulled out his lighter. Now he could see Daryl and the sight wasn’t reassuring, he could have been carved from marble, his face was so blank and impassive.

“What happened with us, the other day…” The rehearsed speech stumbled out. “Christ I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I _wasn’t_ thinking. I fucked up.” And Daryl was still staring at him and he was still talking, babbling, only it wasn’t rehearsed anymore. “You were _right_ _there_ with me and what I did, when I turned you around and _used_ you like that – … it’s maybe the worst thing I ever – and I did it to _you_ of all people… Daryl, you’re my –…” He ran a frustrated hand through his beard. “You’re everything to me. My brother, my partner, my –”

“Jesus. Jesus.” Daryl slid down until he was sitting on the floor. The crossbow clattered down beside him. Then he started laughing. It was a dry, humorless sound, but Rick took meager consolation in it anyway. “That was fucken _dark,_ Rick.” 

He stared at him.

“You thought –” Daryl shook his head. “Aint like that. ’S got nuthin ta do with you jizzin on my ass.”

“ _What,_ then?” he said a little desperately, torn between relief and mounting fear that there was something still worse.

“Took me the last couple days ta figure out,” said Daryl, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “Short of it is, don’t think we can carry on how we were before.”

All the breath left his body. He deserved this, he knew he did, but hearing it aloud was a thousand times worse than the mocking voice in his own head.

But Daryl must have reopened the channel of their private CB radio, because he said, unprompted, “You gotta quit rushin to conclusions. That aint what I’m sayin neither. Not talkin bout _us_ , Rick, ’m talkin bout how we fuck.”

Fear, hope, elation, confusion – he reeled, vertiginous.

Daryl trailed his fingers through the dust on the floorboards. “Way I figure, we can’t do it so rough, like animals, now that we aint got the prison. Behind those fences – it kept the world out, ya know? But out here, we aint got jack shit… too easy, ta become like the world round us, ruttin like dogs an’ never stoppin ta talk it over. Reckon we gotta treat _us_ as somethin, I dunno, _special_ now, gotta do it gentle.”

“ _Yes,_ ” he breathed. “God, yes, Daryl…”

“Anyway,” said Daryl, rolling to his feet with enviable ease, “we good?”

 _Good_? Good didn’t even begin to – all Daryl had done was stand and take a few steps forward, but Rick was like a mouse hypnotized before a cobra. Daryl’s open, unguarded face, the earnest concern etched between his brows, his eyes, his eyes… _Sweet Jesus._ Rick shrank back against the desk; it was an act of sheer willpower to suppress the predatory impulse, the burning desperation for control surging through him. Where had it come from? Daryl was right, it had never been about power back at the prison, no matter how rough it got. But out here… Rick trembled violently, but he knew better now. Knew that kneejerk domination was just an extension of fear, and if he was ever going to deserve the kind of love ( _love? who said anything about love?)_ Daryl offered, he would have to lay down his gun and his machete and give himself over with the same radiant purity as the man before him.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay what?” Scant inches away, Daryl was tilting his head and sizing him up.

“I’m all yours,” he said. Humbled, desperate to prostrate himself. “Want you to fuck me, right now.”

It was just as he remembered, the way Daryl guided him into position for that first gentle brushing together of lips. Supple elegance. And patience, too, as he dodged Rick’s overeager tongue and nibbled on his lower lip. But then he stepped back and Rick _moaned_ at the loss –

“Nope,” said Daryl. The corners of his mouth were curving up and his eyes had gone so very dark. “Nope, tonight you’re gonna fuck me. Think you can do that?”

It was a ringing challenge, a chance to prove himself in the manner Daryl had stipulated. To demonstrate he remembered quiet and tenderness, that he could give without getting lost in what was there for the taking. Daryl was still watching him, smiling slightly. “Whaddaya say, Rick?”

This was frightening, much more so than their first time together. He glanced around the office, taking in the crucifixes, the friezes, the gory Passion scenes covering the walls. Felt like his own Judgment Day, but Daryl reached out a hand and drew him in. They were exactly the same height, so there was no twisting or contorting by the time Daryl got round to kissing him seriously, just head-on collision. Daryl’s tongue dove under his, _finally_ , teasing the thick web of muscle he found there, and Rick choked on a garbled groan and Daryl piously raised his eyes to the crucifix above them and they both chuckled.

He was painfully hard, pressed against Daryl’s thigh through two layers of denim. A flicker of doubt crept in and he wondered if Daryl was even enjoying it, if he, Rick, was doing this properly, if Daryl was feeling that special _thing_ he claimed only Rick could make him feel –

 _Yeah, I’m feelin it_ Daryl’s eyes told him, slow and warm as honey, and he nudged forward until Rick felt that he felt it too and could have wept from relief and lust and an odd sort of pride. _Don’t let it get to your head_ Daryl warned him, angling their pelvises together, but Rick couldn’t help it, he was exhilarated as all hell, even as the physical proof of Daryl’s desire humbled him and brought him to his knees.

Literally to his knees, wrestling with Daryl’s belt as his overeager fingers slipped on the buckle. Then the button, then the zipper, then Daryl was hissing between his teeth as Rick pulled his cock out and prepared to improvise. It all felt new and achingly vulnerable again, down to the little voice reminding him _cover your teeth_ as he sucked Daryl into his mouth. Hollowing out his cheeks and using his tongue and everything else he could think of, fully immersed in the musky, earthy taste that was Daryl. _Oh yeah, I remember this now, how it used to go between us._

A hand tangled in his hair and tugged; looking up, he saw Daryl staring down at him with blue flame, the hottest kind of fire, dancing in his eyes. He started to clear his throat but Rick already knew what he wanted, he returned to his cock but kept his eyes fixed on Daryl’s. Wide, burning, unblinking.

Then Daryl dropped to the floor beside him and kissed him dizzy, tongue invading every corner of his gasping mouth until he pulled back with a wet little pop of suction. “Kay,” he said.

Rick watched Daryl take off his clothes, a sight that still mesmerized him, before he remembered to start on his own.  Daryl was fully naked, unusual for him when they were in a hurry or stood a chance of being interrupted, but tonight was different so Rick followed suit, folding shirt and jeans in a neat pile. When he couldn’t stall anymore he turned back to Daryl. Daryl was stretched on his side, he’d come up with a jar of what might have been vaseline, and his fingers were already busy between his legs. Rick chewed his lip and tried to make eye contact with the saints above so he wouldn’t fall apart from the sight of that alone _Saint Catherine on the wheel, Saint Hippolytus torn apart by horses, please don’t let me come just yet._

When he could breathe again he settled beside Daryl – the utter bliss of it, to have that warm naked body to pull against his own – and quickly replaced Daryl’s fingers with his own. Daryl sighed; he was nearly ready and his body undulated softly with each press of Rick’s fingers. Rick, though, he was nearly cross-eyed; Daryl had no idea what his body was capable of, not when it came to Rick, who vibrated like a plucked string with every little touch.

Daryl rapped his knuckles lightly against his temple and Rick withdrew his fingers. His heart was pounding in his ears and his arms trembled as he levered himself above Daryl. _That’s it, nice an’ slow_ he didn’t know if Daryl’s voice was in his ears or in his head, but those were definitely Daryl’s hands reaching up to steady him. Daryl arching his back so he was pressed right against him, Daryl wrapping a leg around his waist and pulling him into familiar tight heat.

Daryl’s unwavering eyes held him through all that followed. Riding waves of pleasure that crested ever higher, Rick thought what an extraordinary thing it was, not to turn inward with the first rush of heat and focus on his own body, but instead remain outward, attuned. Taking his time, he rediscovered the way Daryl’s breath hitched each time he hit that spot deep inside. How the hair at his temples darkened with sweat. The high pitched inhalation that he tried to smother when Rick grasped hold of his cock. The look in his eyes when Rick pulled him closer, half onto his lap, so he could stroke a hand over his beloved scarred back. This – it was the closest he would ever get to being another person, to _being_ Daryl, and he finally understood what Daryl had been trying to tell him.

The beauty of it, it made him a believer again.

And all the poison drained away.

Daryl growled and kissed him through the explosion of salty wetness that followed. Then they separated, but only to lie on their sides facing one another. Staring into Daryl’s eyes, he knew he was back with _Daryl_ again, not the uncommunicative stranger on the road nor the battle-weary soldier who not an hour past had snarled at the wide-eyed priest _life’s a bitch an’ then you die_ with such bitterness that Rick could almost hear the screams from up above all over again.

But everything was quiet now, and when Daryl smiled at him with heavy-lidded eyes, he knew Daryl recognized him, too. 

Rick trailed his fingers along Daryl’s jaw, down his neck and the rugged lines of his back, the scars as much a part of him as everything else and therefore loved just the same.

_Loved –_

His mind stuttered. “You being with me, here, now, that’s everything. You’re my - …” Rick gathered himself to finish his thought from days past. “I…”

But words had always fallen short when it came to Daryl. So he raised his left hand between them and slowly removed the gold band from his fourth finger.

Daryl didn’t react, not at first, so Rick tipped his palm and let the ring fall noiselessly to the carpet. Then Daryl ran his forefinger over the strip of pale skin the ring left behind. His eyes, when he raised them to Rick’s, were the softest they’d ever been.

Daryl picked up the wedding ring and placed in the center of Rick’s palm, folding his fingers securely around it. And then, with his hand still covering Rick’s, he leaned in and kissed him, shallow and open-mouthed. “Know what that meant,” he said quietly after he drew away. “But it aint necessary,” he continued, before Rick could protest. “’S part of who ya are, that ring, an’ ya don’t gotta change for me.”

“But – ” Rick said, “but –” his grand gesture rebuffed, his old promise to Lori cold and heavy in his hand.

“Aint gotta erase nuthin,” Daryl said simply.

Rick wasn’t sure about that; there was plenty he would have liked to erase from the past few days alone, plenty he wished Daryl hadn’t learned about him. But Daryl was still here, wasn’t he? He curled his fingers around the fine bones of Daryl’s wrist and tugged. Daryl let himself be pulled until he was half-sprawled across Rick’s chest. Looming over him, their faces inches apart. The noise in his head was increasing, _love you love you_ reaching a deafening crescendo and there was no way Daryl could miss it, not when they were staring into one another’s eyes and pressed so close together.

Daryl nodded slightly. His _you too_ was featherlight and fleeting as a kiss, but Rick heard it nonetheless. He let Daryl slide the ring back on his finger, and this time it felt like a promise he could keep. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you for reading, and I love hearing from you lovely readers.


End file.
